Evangelism as public theology: the public engagement of the gospel of the kingdom church in Semarang, Indonesia

It is argued that an exclusive theology of evangelism can contribute to a public theology in a multicultural and Muslim majority context. The result theologically contributes towards a contextual articulation of an exclusive faith to a pluralistic public. On the practical level, this theology of evangelism provides a public theology for Chinese-Indonesian Charismatics to express their exclusive faith to the wider Indonesian public, mainly the Javanese Muslims. A unified paradigm of theology as wisdom is utilised in this research to discern the psychological, cosmic and public aspects of the belief and practices of ordinary Charismatics. This ‘ordinary theology’ is portrayed through qualitative research in a case study megachurch in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia. An interdisciplinary approach towards these psychological and cosmic aspects is done by employing a Jungian personality psychology theory and a managerial philosophy for a non-profit organisation. This study shows the influence of evangelism in the extensive public engagement of Indonesian Charismatic megachurches. These findings indicate a potentiality of such exclusive faith to speak publicly that is elaborated through Miroslav Volf’s proposal on political pluralism, which assumes an authentic voice for religious exclusivism. This provides an alternative articulation of Charismatic academic theology besides the common systematic expression